Every now and again it seems as if our world turns upside down–maybe even inside out. And now, in the middle of September, with seven weeks left until the presidential election and eleven until the end of hurricane season, the world has flipped–or is it flopped?
In case you haven’t heard, the once dubbed “Pop Princess” has officially married… again. A few days ago Britney Spears married some guy in a private “family only” ceremony. I wonder if the guy she got married too while she was drunk in Vegas was there. That would be interesting. I also wonder why it was considered “family only.” You think Britney would be trying to clean up her image. I mean, a kiss with her new husband is probably going to pick up better press then a kiss with Madonna. Wait, who am I kidding? Anyway, the fact that Britney is again married is going to kill her career–not that she really has one anymore, but you know, its all relative. I can see her trying to ride on “The Newlyweds” coattails and try to get a show of her own, but face it, Britney just isn’t as stupid as Jessica Simpson. So Britney, sorry to say, but your time has come and gone.
BREAKING NEWS:
This just in exclusively to Lone Palm Creations, President Bush makes deal with God to prevent further hurricane devastation in Florida.
LPC has just unearthed a memo written by God to Mother Nature. The exclusive document explains how God agreed to stop sending hurricanes into Florida in order to help President Bush get reelected. LPC has verified God’s signature in the memo as authentic based on past memos in our archive. Here is the document in its entirety:
Expect more on this breaking story as it develops, and remember you heard it here first.
In other news, McDonald’s France has hired on the Olsen Twins to be their new spokes-ah-twins. The two and only, newly legal, Mary-Kate and Ashley will not only be trying to sell the McArtery-Cloger to their millions of French fans, but they will also be putting Mary-Kate and Ashley toys in French Happy Meals. Ok, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Mary-Kate just take a ride in rehab because of an “eating disorder?” I guess McDonald’s doesn’t care. Maybe the French don’t either. But does anyone else find this a little strange. I wonder what happens when someone goes from being anorexic to eating McDonalds all the time. The guy from Super Size Me should look into that. Here is the premise: Take little anorexic Mary-Kate Olsen and follow her around for a month, only allowing her to eat McDonald’s food. I think she would explode. It’d make millions. And hey, its not like the world would be any worse off, we’d still have Ashley.
This just in: LPC can no longer say with great certainty that the document produced earlier is authentic. We are very sorry for this very unfortunate turn of events and in no way intended to mislead the public or affect the presidential election. In our defense, Dan Rather gave the memo to LPC and personally assured us that John Kerry assured him the memo was indeed authentic. Again, LPC is sorry for this.
Ok, so Bush didn’t make a deal with God and Dan Rather didn’t give us any memo. But let me say this about the upcoming election. I could care less about what Senator Kerry did or didn’t do in Vietnam. Likewise, I don’t care whether or not President Bush got special treatment in getting into the National Guard. This election should be about what the person will do as President of the United States of America. Bush has four years of experience under his belt and, like it or not, he is running on it. Kerry has twenty years of experience in the US Senate but is he running on that? No, of course not, that would be silly. What is more important, of course, is the four months Kerry spent in Vietnam thirty years ago. Listen people, there is only a short time left before the election. The debates are just around the corner. Make your decision on who to vote for based on policy and not the mudslinging and crap that doesn’t really matter. And if you are eligible to vote, but aren’t registered, October 4th is the deadline to do so.
Finally, I just celebrated my twenty-second birthday; I am currently one sixth of the way through my senior year here at Florida State University and have absolutely no idea what my “Service Operations” class is all about. Test in there on Thursday. I think I’m going to try and figure out just what it is.
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Now that Christmas is over and everyone is preparing to venture out, yet again, into the shopping world — this time to return everything they unwrapped but sent thank you notes for anyway — I thought I’d join just about every other media outlet in the world and recap what 2003 was all about. (Editors note: I bring information to people so I am therefore a media outlet. If you disagree, suck it.)
The first big news story of 2003 was, regrettably, a tragic one. On February 1st, NASA’s shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry killing all seven crew members onboard. This was the first major loss to NASA since the Challenger tragedy in 1986. Debris from the shuttle was found over much of the United States. In August, NASA confirmed that faulty heat-shield tiles were to blame for the disaster and vowed to check every inch of the remaining three shuttles in its fleet. The shuttle program is still grounded and is said to remain so well into 2004.
Arguably the largest story of 2003 is that of the war in Iraq. The problem escalated until March 19th when a coalition of nations — mainly the US and the UK — began Operation Iraqi Freedom. The goal was to finally end Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian rule over the Iraqi people. A swift bombing campaign was followed by a massive swell of ground troops who marched into downtown Baghdad on April 9th. On that day the immense statue of Saddam at the city square was torn down for the world to see. It would be a good eight months later, on December 14th at 7:30am EST when Paul Bremer announced “We got him.” Ironically Saddam’s capture came not in a hale of bullets but with a cowardly surrender.
2003 also saw the first successful recall of a state governor. Gray Davis was effectively thrown out of office with an October 7th vote that in turn installed non other then Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new governor of California. Schwarzenegger vowed, in an extremely impressive inauguration speech, to fix California’s problems and get the power back to the people.
One of the most obnoxious stories of 2003 has to be the constant press that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez — AKA JLo — received. The press focused constantly on the upcoming wedding and how much in love the two were. That was until July 15th with the release of Gigli. Considerably one of the worst pieces of film ever made, (The Internet Movie Database has Gigli ranked in the top 10 of the bottom 100 movies in history. Also up there is From Justin to Kelly.), Gigli bombed at the box office and reports came out saying that the wedding was now off. Frankly I don’t really give a crap what the new story on them is, so I’m ending this segment here.
It’s hard to call it the fad of 2003, but in a way, it kind of is. Severe Acute Repository Syndrome, or SARS for short, swept the globe seemingly instantly killing 750 people in over 25 countries. SARS was a mystery until it was discovered by a scientist who later died from the very virus. The largest concentration of victims seemed to hit in Japan and Toronto. Shortly before the virtual elimination of SARS from the globe, and thus the news, an Asian design firm unveiled designer SARS masks allowing people to stay safe and be fashionable at the same time.
The sports world saw some very odd occurrences in 2003. Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. The Florida Marlins won the World Series. FSU lost to Georgia in the Orange Bowl and Ohio Sate beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl to win the National Championship. The Orlando Magic went 1-19 to open their 2003-2004 season and FSU basketball went 9-0 to open theirs. It just goes to show that when it comes to sports you can’t take anything for granted.
Yes, a lot happened in 2003. So much that I have only briefly skimmed the surface with this trice recap. But here’s to the completion of one year and to a great year to come. All of us here at Lone Palm Creations wish everyone a merry Christmas/happy Hanukkah/merry Kwanza and a happy new year!
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It seems to be a pretty crazy world out there right now. We’ve got Kobe Bryant in Colorado on rape charges, Arnold Schwarzenegger is running for governor in California, Martha Stewart is looking at potential jail time in New York, and J-Lo and Ben Affleck’s new movie is bombing the world over. But these are not all the bizarre stories that are plaguing our world today. Allow me, if you will to take you on a journey through today’s news.
In today’s local news–which would be Orlando, Florida in case you didn’t know–Universal’s Islands of Adventure is reporting that a man who was riding the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster lost his $13,500 prosthetic leg. Dueling Dragons is an inverted rollercoaster, meaning ones legs dangle from the seats which are suspended to the track above. According to Universal IoA Risk Management, loss of prosthetic legs while aboard Dueling Dragons is quite common. He also reported that dive crews are scouring the lake in which the leg fell and are trying feverishly to find the leg. Moral of this story: make sure you’re leg is firmly attached before riding a rollercoaster.
In a story originally published in the August 18th issue of Newsweek and brought to my attention by the Phillips Phile (a local talk radio show found from 3-7 pm on Real Radio 104.1 or worldwide on XM channel 152), apparently more and more middle and upper class teenagers are becoming prostitutes. Newsweek talked with a girl who calls herself “Stacey” who is a “[c]ute, blonde and chatty” 17 year old living in Minnesota. Evidently, one day while at the Mall of America shopping for new clothes an older man approached “Stacey” and offered to buy her clothes so he could see her in them. She agreed and went home with $250 worth of new threads. From there “Stacey” started to strip for money in hotel rooms and that evidently lead to sex. She reportedly set up a voicemail box on a dating service looking for well off men looking for a good time. “Stacey’s” going rate? $400. What do her parents think? Well, until she was arrested, her parents didn’t know. “Stacey” would tell them she was going to the mall or friends and be sure to be home before midnight, her curfew. What did “Stacey” have to say about this? “Potentially good sex is a small price to pay for the freedom to spend money on what I want.” The FBI and other agencies are calling this “Designer Sex”–meaning that teens are having sex in order to afford designer clothes or electronics. In the end, “Stacey” was caught after a typical hotel meeting with her and two other teenagers turned out to be set up by an undercover detective. Oops. Moral of this story: screen your phone calls.
I mentioned earlier that Schwarzenegger is running for governor of California. Let me quickly run down some of the other people on the California ballot. Garry Coleman, the “cute little black midget” (Bubba Whoop Ass Wilson) who stared on Different Strokes, is running not to win, but to bring others to the polls. How thoughtful. “Hustler” publisher Larry Flint is running and actually expects to win. I don’t know about you but if he runs his campaign anything like that movie about him (‘The People vs. Larry Flint’) he might have a chance. Apparently there are a few other porn stars, some politicians including California’s current Lt. Governor, the capital buildings janitor and yes, me. Not really. However, there are roughly 200 people on the ballot because, well, all it takes in $3,500 and 65 signatures to be there. But if you ask me, my money is on Arnold. Heavily underrated by pretty much everyone, Arnold is quite intelligent and–I believe–has what it takes to turn that state around. Though, come October we’ll see what the faithful people of California (saw it in an Arnold voice) have to say. Moral of this story: when you can’t find other weird stuff in the news, default to crazy political happenings.
And finally, I saw that this evening the annual Miss Teen USA Pageant is on NBC. You know what this means, a whole new flock of prostitutes out on the streets.
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